Messages

6741

General Mach Discussion / Re: Motion controllers - Take me to school

« on: September 04, 2017, 11:05:07 PM »

Hi ger21,
kool, that's good to know. I think we are well served by our long term suppliers with Mach4 ready products.

Craig

6742

General Mach Discussion / Re: Motion controllers - Take me to school

« on: September 04, 2017, 03:13:04 PM »

Hi,
the 340 is NOT a motion controller it is a boxed parallel input breakout board.

You need either the 411 as a single port output controller or the 424 which has two effective ports worth of IO.

Craig

6743

General Mach Discussion / Re: Motion controllers - Take me to school

« on: September 04, 2017, 02:50:18 PM »

Hi,
to continue...the value end of the market..

https://warp9td.com/   the ESS recommended
https://www.pmdx.com/ the 411 for simplicity and price the 424 for increased functionality
https://www.poscope.com/products/pokeys-devices/ the 57CNCd25 for simplicity and price the E57 or E57CNC for functionality

http://www.cncdrive.com/ have useful product, the simple and cheap UC100 is Mach4 capable, the larger and more functional products are Mach3 capable only

http://www.vitalsystem.com/portal/index.php have a superb reputation but useful solution start at $600.

You may note that all of the recommendations I've made are Mach4 capable which is also my recommendation. The list might be  somewhat longer for good Mach3 only
products like
http://en.cs-lab.eu/
http://dynomotion.com/KFLOP.html

Craig

6744

General Mach Discussion / Re: Motion controllers - Take me to school

« on: September 04, 2017, 02:31:17 PM »

Hi,
if you want to spend that sort of gold on servos but the save $10 buying a Chinese motion controller?

Some research on the forum will reveal hundreds if not thousands of posts about Chinese controllers and the battle people have had trying to
get them to work. Even if they succeed features we regard as standard fare like probing often don't work. China might as well be a different planet
when it comes manufacturers support.

In the 'value' end of the market

6745

General Mach Discussion / Re: All the Gear and No Idea (as to why nothing happens)

« on: September 04, 2017, 07:09:28 AM »

Hi Basil,
as tweakie points out there should be info on pin-outs from your supplier.

It should still be possible to get the DROs to track MDI and jog commands. The settings you've highlighted are associated with the parallel port,
ie the motion control output, the DROs should work even in absence of any of those settings.

There may be one thing to try, I'm doubtful that it will work but it may....its not like I haven't been wrong before.

On the Config/Ports and Pins/Motor Outputs page enable (check mark) the X, Y and Z axes. You don't, at this stage need to fill in the pin numbers, we
are only trying to get the DROs working. May pay to restart Mach and try MDI and jogging on the flyout screen. If that doesn't work I'm wondering if you've
got a corrupt copy of Mach. If that's the case delete the original and download a copy of the .062 version and try again. Its probably a good idea to use the
Control Panel to manually 'dig out' and delete the parallel port driver and have Mach install a fresh driver at the same time. The only thing you need to save
from your current installation is the licence file, usually called Mach1Lic.dat in the Mach3 folder.

Craig

6746

General Mach Discussion / Re: All the Gear and No Idea (as to why nothing happens)

« on: September 03, 2017, 09:38:24 PM »

Hi,
your right, all of them are blank.

First things first, tell me more about the DRO situation.

Try jogging on the flyout and observe the DROs. You absolutely have to get this sorted or all else is meaningless.

Craig

6747

General Mach Discussion / Re: All the Gear and No Idea (as to why nothing happens)

« on: September 03, 2017, 09:08:10 PM »

Hi,
start by getting the DROs to work.

Worry about ports and pins a bit down the track.

Craig

6748

General Mach Discussion / Re: Motion controllers - Take me to school

« on: September 03, 2017, 09:05:38 PM »

Hi Mike,
very nice albeit expensive solution.

Most if not all modern servo drives accept step/dir inputs. If you really want a servo solution there are lots to chose from
ranging from expensive upwards!

Have you seriously questioned whether a stepper motor solution can achieve what you want?

Craig

6749

General Mach Discussion / Re: All the Gear and No Idea (as to why nothing happens)

« on: September 03, 2017, 08:58:38 PM »

Hi,
I missed reading one of your posts, you've had some luck jogging with the machine plugged in. That means
Mach can work and it can generate pulses and output them to the parallel port. Good news.

Still a bit bemused as to why the DROs won't change when you jog.

Craig

6750

General Mach Discussion / Re: All the Gear and No Idea (as to why nothing happens)

« on: September 03, 2017, 08:54:27 PM »

Hi,
if the DROs are not changing then Mach is not producing any pulses and your machine won't go.
Solve this issue and you will be well on your way.

Is Mach enabled?. On the main screen there is a Reset button, when its red and flashing Mach is disabled.
Can you operate the button and have it change from green to red and back again?

When you jogged did you use the keyboard arrows or the arrows on the on-screen flyout?

Craig